This is how humiliating it is living in NZ at times

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Oh, how terribly humiliating to be a Nuer at times…

NZ student mistaken for terrorist
Jaspreet Singh was sitting at Columbus cafe yesterday morning, outside Auckland Hospital, and a few metres away from the University of Auckland Medical School where he is studying to become a doctor.

Mr Singh is 21 and wears a turban as part of his Sikh faith.

He was meeting his mentor and research supervisor, Professor Luke Larkin, to talk about a research project he was keen to get involved with.

Two police officers entered the cafe 20 minutes later and asked Mr Singh to step outside. Prof Larkin initially refused on his behalf, arguing the officers were picking on him because of his race.

Mr Singh said he was shocked, but obliged and followed the police out.

“They took me outside and they explained that someone had called them and said I was doing something with wires in my laptop bag.”

…groan. Where to begin. Did the idiot paranoid member of the public who called from the toilets of the cafe understand that the person they were complaining to the Police about the supposed terror threat was in fact from a completely different religion than those who carried out the Paris attacks?

Fear of the ‘other’ has never been so embarrassing and stupid.

The good thing was that the young mans friends sitting with him initially refused to let the Cops take him out – it’s vital to let the Police know they are being watched when they embark on public checks of identity or else they’ll think they can just get away with it.

Odds on the person who complained is a National Party voter.

20 COMMENTS

  1. That thing around his neck has wires!!! He’s dark skinned and “different” from US kiwis, quick call the cops.

    Also shows how unintelligent our po po are that they could have spent 5 minutes observing the two chatting and sussed nothing to report (could have had a coffee and donuts two tables away probably gratis, no issue)

    All too often our po po like to lean on people, especially if they have dark skin.

    • He’s dark skinned and “different” from US kiwis…especially if they have dark skin

      It was the turban and beard. Skin colour was secondary and probably served only to reinforce the caller’s unbelievably ignorant conclusion.

      If Singh hadn’t been wearing any headress you can be pretty sure that the call would not have been made. There are hundreds of thousands of dark skinned people in Auckland, how many daily terrorist bomb callouts happen on their account?

      The ignorant idiot who rang would also probably have done so if it had been a person of “white” caucasion or semitic extraction wearing a turban and a full beard. They wrongly thought these identified the wearer as being muslim, and muslims come in all colours.

      Martin is correct to use the term “otherness”. In this case, otherness = muslim and likely a foreigner.

  2. maybe we should all wear “I am NOT a terrorist ” t-shirts in solidarity

    ….just to make it quite clear to idiot members of the public

  3. Keeping New Zealanders jittery and paranoid is an essential part of National’s strategy of justification for the curtailing of democratic freedom and rights. If you keep an imagined state of emergency going then anything you do about it can be justified in the name of protecting New Zealanders and keeping public order.
    The next step will be a tightening of national state of emergency and terrorism laws, passed under urgency of course!

    • How much tighter can they get our security laws? – I mean we are pretty much up the arse of the US military and the ‘Club’ (who don’t seem to be working for their people any more, just for corporate warfare).

      Maybe West Papua – 15 years jail for raising a flag?

      If it is ok to be incarcerated on Christmas Island for zero crimes then anything is now possible.

      • yes this was a shot across the bows….all NZers should withdraw from Australian banks and refuse to do trade with Australia where ever possible ie find alternatives

    • Yes mike the leftie,.

      This was how they controlled the population of Germany from 1933, under Goebbels “Ministry of Public Enlightenment & Propaganda”, now in NZ under a similar network agency called MBIE (Ministry of business Innovation & Employment) under Minister Joyce.

      Goebbels would be impressed how NatZ have set this up here.

  4. It could be worse, a 10 year old making a clock!

    Probably the ‘informant’ was a young Nat who voted ACT in Epsom and loves Key and Hoskings.

    Good on the professor Larkin too. What a joke.

    Poor Mr Singh. Good luck with his studies!

  5. A mechanic who happens to be a Muslim told me that he feels uneasy to interact with customers that often bring the conversation around to the ISIS and the terrorist bombings and ask him for his opinion on that.
    He also told me about an amusing encounter with a home-visiting Jehovah witness who asked him what his religion was and when told, ‘muslim’, the J. Witness seemed suddenly quite eager to depart very quickly!

  6. Don’t be embarrassed to be a NZer by one dingbat.

    Funny though I can’t help but fear that an actual terrorist could go unreported due to fear of racism like this. Of course a real terrorist wouldn’t be sitting in a cafe with wires visible to everyone.

  7. One doesn’t have to be dark skinned …fiddling with wires ….or in fact, have to have done anything at all to be targeted by NZ Police.
    I am a white, middle aged NZ born citizen now making formal complaint for a completely illegal, unprofessional, humiliating, stressful, traumatising, shocking experience by two NZ Police Officers who simply should have known better. The complaint is also against their Sargeant who upon finding out their actions were illegal has also been unprofessional, belligerent, unhelpful, arrogant even in using delaying tactics and any trick he can to delay my “absolutely going to happen” complaint. As result I am now considering possible Civil action against NZ Police. Have they learned nothing over the years ?
    So never fear any person who is not NZ born or of white skin, they are indiscriminate in their stupidity.

    • <i.has also been unprofessional, belligerent, unhelpful, arrogant even in using delaying tactics and any trick he can to delay my “absolutely going to happen” complaint

      Count yourself lucky, they usually deal with complaints against their own by dreaming up something to charge the complainant with.

      It works like a dream, wastes the complainant’s time, induces significant stress, costs them money, then, once the complainant has been duly brutalised by the process, the original complaint almost always vaporises.

  8. So the complaint was unfounded and the complainant foolishly didn’t know the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim, but why bash the Police officers for doing exactly what they should have done and what the public expects them to do? From the brief description of the incident it sounds to me as if the Police handled this in the right way.
    On the other hand –
    Gwynna: One has only to remember the eulogy by the Deputy Commissioner Mike Bush at Hutton’s funeral to know that nothing will change for the better until there is a clean-out at the top levels of New Zealand Policing.

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